Dave in Green

I will cheer for any MAC team that has a shorter police record than its opponent, or whose student body and alumni do not believe that they are genetically superior to others in the MAC. So potentially two of those teams may have to get by without my support. The others rock.

Welcome to Zips Nation. There are already ongoing threads discussing the Zips-Zags matchup, so you might want to check those out rather than having repeats here.

Not verified, but I heard from one person that so far Zips ticket traffic is moderate, and Zags ticket traffic is extremely heavy.

I'm fortunate to have rung up enough frequent flyer miles to cover the trip, so I don't have to pay the high fares.What I saw in my brief search through available flights is that there are no bargains for Portland, but there are some to Seattle. Hilltopper and I have decided to drive to Detroit (3 hours) and catch a direct flight to Seattle. It's less than a 3-hour drive from Seattle to Portland. The best prices I saw were Columbus to Seattle. It includes a couple of connections, but prices out around $400.got room for one more?Not in my frequent flyer miles account. It's now officially busted.In cash, the Detroit-Seattle-Detroit fare is over $1,100, so it's no bargain. Best bargain for cash customers is out of Columbus, not Detroit.

It's always great to have a civil, non-trash-talking visitor from an upcoming Zips opponent visit this forum. You wouldn't know unless you've followed these forums that many forum members here have spoken about wanting Akron to become the "Gonzaga of the East." So we obviously have a great deal of respect for what Gonzaga has accomplished. We really thought our run might begin when the highly recruited 7-foot Zeke Marshall arrives next year, but Zeke's soon-to-be teammates over-achieved and made the Big Dance a year earlier than most anticipated.It appears that Akron and Gonzaga have similar philosophies with the focus on tough defense. From all I hear the Zags play tough but clean, and the Zips are the same. So it should be a great game.Will be interesting to see how much the media plays name games with the Zips vs. Zags thing. ;)Stop back and visit again, and feel free to ask questions.

I've been asking the same question and can't get an answer. The best I've been able to come up with is that one person thinks the Gonzaga game is going to be a prime time (night) game because Gonzaga fans are planning to come out in hordes.

"Ever" is a long time. What we'll know is how close we are to being the Gonzaga of the east now, and how far we have to go.

I'm fortunate to have rung up enough frequent flyer miles to cover the trip, so I don't have to pay the high fares.What I saw in my brief search through available flights is that there are no bargains for Portland, but there are some to Seattle. Hilltopper and I have decided to drive to Detroit (3 hours) and catch a direct flight to Seattle. It's less than a 3-hour drive from Seattle to Portland. The best prices I saw were Columbus to Seattle. It includes a couple of connections, but prices out around $400.

Thanks. I'd already checked that site. I can't find any info anywhere, and think I'm just going to go ahead and plan on flying in Wednesday.

I'm planning on going, and trying to figure out when I need to arrive. Does anyone know if there's a set NCAA formula to figure out whether the Zips game will be the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th in Portland? If it's one of the last two games I can get there in time on game day. If we play the first or second game, I'll have to fly in a day early. So the sooner I can figure which game we play, the sooner I can book an airline ticket.

Here's an analysis of the Zips defense from someone who was a lot closer to the action than any of the fans:"They were taking away our easy shots and a lot of us are good at taking easy pull-ups," (Calvin) Betts said. "They just took it away from us."

I'd like to dedicate this thread to sharing special memories from the Q -- little things that each of us may have seen that may have gone unnoticed by most. This is not for recounting anything in the stats, from the highlight reels or media reports. This is for something you personally happened to see that you think others might enjoy sharing.One of the cool moments for me was looking down at the bench during the long timeout after Cvetinovic fouled out in the championship game. As you might expect, it was quite an emotional moment for the Serb who is all heart. As the coaching staff was giving the players instructions on how they were going to play the game out, I noticed that Humpty was talking to Nik. It wasn't just a few words, either. Humpty had his arm on Nik's back, the 5-9 player looking almost straight up at the 6-8 player, and just kept talking to him non-stop throughout the entire timeout. Neither of them could have heard a word the coaches were saying. From the expression on Humpty's face, I imagined that he was telling Nik not to worry, that the game was under control and that he had done all he could and played a big role in putting the Zips out front to stay.Seeing that close bond between the two true freshmen starters spoke volumes to me about how the Zips have come together as a team this season, and how things are only going to get better and better in the future.

It's absolutely true that there's less pressure to play your absolute best defense when the offense is clicking. The Zips offense was way above average, so there was no need for them to play their absolute best defense throughout the whole game. As has already been stated, the team that plays the best all around combination of offense and defense usually wins. Sustaining consistently excellent offense and defense for 40 straight minutes is out of the reach of most humans.But I still say an analysis of the game tape at the end will show that Buffalo was unable to get into good scoring position when they needed quick buckets because they were constantly met by Zips players who kept jumping into position to stop their momentum toward the basket. All opinions aside, this will show up on video as clearly as Singletary's sucker punch.

Thanks. Interesting that the other #13 seeds are Stephen F. Austin, VCU and Cleveland State.

Buffalo's team and fans are first class. Reggie Witherspoon is growing their basketball program into a consistent contender in a similar positive way to how KD is doing it. It's programs like this that will bring the MAC back up from this relatively weak basketball conference season, and give Akron good reason not to think about leaving the MAC looking for greener pastures.

This is where the Zips' game experience against Pitt will serve them well. They know how they stack up against an elite team, and what they will have to do to overcome the handicap of playing bigger, faster, more athletic players. Whoever they draw, if they play as they did at the Q, they will not be embarassed. They might lose to a superior team, but they will fight to the end and have everyone's respect.

Nobody is going to convince me the Zips' defense was not outstanding near the end of the game when it counted. I was totally focused on watching the Zips' defense during crunch time, when Buffalo absolutely had to score or go home. With the clock ticking away, and Buffalo needing quick scores, one by one their players would try to initiate a drive to the basket only to be met by 1 or 2 Zips. They passed the ball to the next player, and the same thing happened. The clocked ticked away and they could not get off quick high-percentage shots. When they finally gunned away, they mostly missed. Anyone who doubts this should try to get a video of the game and watch what I personally witnessed at the Q.

I wanted to say when this thread was started how badly I wanted to see Nate have an opportunity to play in the NCAA tournament. But I held back, not wanting to put a jinx on the Zips' chances. Now that Nate has led the Zips to their well-deserved MAC championship and been named MVP of the MAC tournament, I'm thinking there's nothing I could have said to jinx this team. They're beyond jinxing.And Nate is the leader, by his deeds and the example he sets for everyone else. No one gives more of himself on the floor than Nate Linhart. He is an inspiration to us all. Whatever he goes on to do for the rest of his life, he will be a leader by example who will positively impact the lives of those around him. I have the utmost respect for Nate and his family.

Never a doubt.

Why don't you let us know when and where you're going to be reffing a game, and let us come watch and evaluate your officiating for ourselves. If we think you're better than the MAC refs, we could all sign a petition and try to get you a better-paying job.

Factually inaccurate on the quote above.Zips look good tonight, up 29-20 with the ball.Correct! I exaggerated.But I'm still disappointed that your blog elected only to cover the unexciting comments of Zips fans and not the much more colorful Singletary chants from the Buffalo fans. ;)Thanks for your kind comments about the Zips team. That's what really matters here.

I didn't say that losers always complain about the refs and winners never complain. I said that losers complain about the refs more than winners. It's indisputable that losers look for excuses more than winners, and bad reffing is a common excuse. So what I said was true and not a stereotype.I also didn't say the reffing last night was great, just good compared with other MAC games. Go back and look at the stats -- 36 personals in the first game and 34 in the second, and many of those were intentionals at the end of the game. The average for all NCAA basketball games in 2007-2008 was 37.23 personals per game. So both of these games were below average in number of personals called.Yeah, there were some phantoms. Yeah, there were some anticipations. Yeah, there were some missed calls. Always have been and always will be, not just in the MAC, but in the ACC, the Big 10, the NBA and everywhere else that basketball is played. The MAC would be negligent if it didn't try to continuously improve its reffing. But it's probably not substantially different from many other conferences.The refs did not make last night's games unwatchable, and for that they deserve a little positive reinforcement instead of the same pee stream they deserve when they absolutely butcher a game. But it is fun to vent at all refs in all games without discrimination. I should know. I've spent my whole life doing it.

Buffalo fans appear to be a sensitive herd with their references to getting revenge for those "obnoxious zippidy-do-da's jumping around in our alumni arena."But I'll give them credit for their rabid team support. They are intense and non-stop. They appear to have discovered a special elixir that allows them to scream for two hours straight without losing their voices. Any Zips fans who will be going to the Q tonight for the first time in this tournament should be prepared. We may outnumber Buffalo fans at the Q, but they will challenge us in both volume and duration on the sound meter.

Here's the way I see it:* VanDelay Sports is a commercial enterprise that sells products on their website.* They started this thread as a free ad to drive customer traffic to their commercial website.* Once there, we Zips fans find that their game blog selectively pees on us.* When we complain about it here, instead of apologizing to customers who feel they've been insulted, VanDelay tries to justify peeing on us ("When your own fans have to speak out against their fellow Akron fans for their comments, I think our points are rather solid.").This is a no-brainer for me. I do not associate with commercial enterprises that demonstrate a lack of respect for their customers. My business will go to other sources of information on Zips games that do a better job of focusing on game play and don't get sidetracked on belittling the fans.